I worked yesterday and it was busy, even with seven nurses on the floor (normal is four).  As always, I love interacting with my patients, they truly are amazing people.  

I recognized one of the names on the list of patients yesterday.  It's not a common name and I wondered if I knew him.  When I called his name and he stood up, I said, "I know you.", he looked so much like his father.  He looked surprised but when I explained that Brenda (his sister) and I were best friends when we were teens, he vaguely remembered.  He was older than me and Brenda, by nine years so he wasn't home much, and was married probably a year after Brenda and I became friends.  Brenda had three older brothers and what I remember most is that when they had supper, those boys had a plate of potatoes and veg, and then another plate with meat.  They also had the tiniest house, a two bedroom house with six kids.  They had built three bedrooms in the basement and always had a boarder as well.  After the two oldest boys married, Brenda's parents built an addition on the house, a kitchen, which I'm guessing her mom must have loved.

We chatted and caught up and I told him what wonderful people his parents were; they were always kind to me and always welcomed me.  Their house was always a safe place when I was a teen.  I could breathe there, and have fun there.  He even took a photo of me and him and sent it to his sister.  It's a small world.

Not much else going on.  I was talking to my neighbor across the street, whose children go to Jack's school.  My neighbor's oldest has ADHD and autism and she was telling me about something called heavy work.  I had never heard the term, so I looked it up.  Basically, it's about proprioceptive input, which helps calm and organize the brain, and helps calm their bodies down as well.  Proprioception is the sense that lets us perceive the location and movements of our body parts.  When I looked at the some of the activities, I realized that many of them are already activities that Jack does, on his own.  Perhaps he realizes that he feels better afterwards.  

This morning while Jack was supposed to be getting dressed for school, he was walking around and around my kitchen island, talking and talking, while I did the dishes.  Oh, and he was buck naked.  I leave him when he's like this, he's trying to discharge too much energy it feels like.  I also got him to do some pushups.  He wants "abs" and wanted to know if pushups would give him abs.  I assured him they would.  Eventually he got dressed and I took him to school.  

I lifted weights for years, from my twenties to my forties, completely unaware that it was probably helping to calm my body and my mind.  I've always walked and found that so helpful for calming my mind.  I continue to carry heavy things, despite my age, and now I know why.  It helps.  Turns out I'm not to old to learn knew things:)